Mr Starmer Goes to China

Just as the British Prime Minister disembarked his official jet in Beijing for a hastily assembled trip to China, another man was arrested for an arson attack on Keir Starmer's home in Kentish Town, North London.

In May last year, Starmer's front door was blasted with a Molotov cocktail and a car said to belong to the most unpopular prime minister since records began was set on fire. The police initially arrested one young man, then another two, then another – now this one, all Eastern Europeans reportedly working as artisans and occasionally, “modelling”. So, five. Five guys.

Starmer went to China in something of a huff. Insiders have whispered that the American government’s State Department’s decision to make examples of (unelected) censorious individuals – the kind of individual he likes and gives jobs to – continues to spook him, so when President Donald Trump started on Greenland just before Davos, already frayed nerves were in no mood for a composed, rational adjustment to the country’s direction of travel. Starmer flew off the handle, kicked the wall, then planned a trip to the world’s most advanced surveillance state seeking succour from the rigid demands of democracy. Possibly vengeance too.

As tantrums go, it’s arguably one of the more interesting, if not infantile.

New Embassy

On the 20th of January, the British government approved the controversial new Chinese Embassy in London at the site of the former Royal Mint. Described as a “super” embassy, the project will occupy more than five acres in the centre of London, approximately 50 000 square metres. The Chinese like their people to live near their desks, so 230 flats will be built to accommodate staff (no mention of how many folk will be sharing rooms). The Chinese claim the project is essential to centralise various fixtures of its diplomatic mission; critics emphasise mysterious areas, blacked out in the architectural plans, that betray any stated purpose. These grey, deliberately concealed areas, they feel, speak to illicit activities. Such as espionage.

The United Kingdom (UK) hasn't been particularly effective at curtailing espionage from the Chinese – which has been prolific. In 2021, three Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) officers, posing as reporters, were issued marching orders from the UK. In 2022, the UK’s domestic security agency MI5 issued a rare warning that a solicitor, Christine Lee, had committed political interference on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), targeting British MPs. But perhaps the most damning example involved a case that the government itself was accused of sabotaging.

In March 2023, Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher with access to senior MPs, and academic Christopher Berry were collared for allegedly passing information to a Chinese intelligence agent. They were charged in 2024, but bizarrely the case collapsed in September 2025 as the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charges due to “insufficient evidence”.

Thawing of Relations

Against this backdrop and irked by the events in Switzerland – possibly the historian Niall Ferguson’s claim that “Donald Trump won Davos” – Starmer jetted off to Beijing in the spirit of trade, collaboration, and the thawing of relations iced up by the espionage controversies. Interestingly, his fat contingent of travelling officials did not include his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves – but the Chinese can be particular about this department of government and the people who run it – as the Chinese embassy in South Africa’s statement upon Jacob Zuma’s appointment of Des van Rooyen in 2015 made clear.

The appearance of a busy, successful week was quickly established as an editorial policy through Starmer’s favourite access journalists, namely The Guardian’s political editor Pippa Crerar, and Sky News’s Beth Rigby. China agreed to grant 30-day visa-free entry for British citizens travelling for tourism or business, bringing the UK in line with other major nations; a reduction in tariffs on Scotch whisky was secured, enhancing competitiveness in the Chinese market; pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced a $15 billion investment in China through 2030; and China lifted sanctions on several British MPs and peers who had been targeted in 2021.

So, common travel, booze, standard growth news for big pharma, and a few reprieves – basically the equivalent of coming 17th in a race of 58 participants.

Bigger Disaster

While the trip itself was exactly a disaster, it is part of another, bigger one.

Nobody denies the importance of relationships, even with the likes of China – but the issue for the UK is one of apparent weakness. Weakness to confront the central committee for repeated espionage – the weakness of knowing the espionage was happening, the weakness of not doing anything about and worse, the weakness of making excuses, particularly those rooted in law or perceived diplomacy.

The Chinese are great fans of weakness and desperation. They also like greed, which is why so many African nations who went all-in on belt and road are nervously reflecting on what they conceded, awakening to the projected reactions of future generations.

The UK is weak and weakening. Its influence is jeered, and its increasingly explicit efforts to replace its Constitution with bland human rights law text is enraging quarters of its population. Its political elite are now explicit in their hatred of the country’s history, so are determined to chart new courses, especially in international relations, oblivious to warnings, most of which contain indisputable evidence.

But if weakening were to descend further to a full, irreversible decline, the UK government would have no choice but to lower the age of child labour – and the smoking rule with it. In China, very young people are forced into sweat shops, sometimes storeys underground, sewing footballs together or stitching the manbags sold on beaches in the southern Mediterranean. One of their rewards is said to be one cigarette, twice a day. Then again, if such a scenario were ever to materialise, those rule changes will probably be signed off in Beijing.